Mello Music Group

Oddisee - The Odd Tape (Cassette)

Release Date: 5/13/16

Oddisee is an everyman with extraordinary talent. Both a rapper chronicling the perils and joys of ordinary existence, and a virtuosic producer attuned to the vibrations of how life actually sounds. But don't mistake the Odd Tape for the noise of birds chirping, idle chatter, or car alarms; it's that internal soul-jazz reverberating at the back of your brain.
For the last decade, the Mello Music Group artist has alternated between instrumental albums, full-length rap records, and his role as one-third of Diamond District. The Odd Tape is technically the former-there are no vocals-but if you call this an instrumental album, you might as well say the same about Bitches Brew.
After a decade making music, the Prince Georges, Md.-raised and Brooklyn-based has transcended influences, comparisons and genre. The Odd Tape showcases the range of a composer bending hip-hop, soul, and jazz into singular form, tapping into that same emotional Fort Knox that animates all wordless choruses.
The Odd Tape revolves around the rhythms of the artist's daily life. It starts in the morning with "Alarmed," that sounds like if Shuggie Otis did a psychedelic eye-opening cover of Nas' "Shootouts." It rolls through "Right Side of the Bed," with its glitter-gold sax lines, loose drums, and sunshine-slanting-through-the-blinds keyboards. Oddisee went from sampling to creating the eternal sounds of his original inspirations. You can hear older gods like Roy Ayers, Bob James, and Fela, but mostly you hear Oddisee continue to come into his own.
As Pitchfork described his previous album, 2015's The Good Fight: "the music feels distinctly international and unhindered, far removed from the straight-ahead boom-bap he used to make. He's always created on his own terms, but [this] feels like a hearty "fuck you" to prevailing groupthink and the industry's creative limitations."
But this record marks another ascension. It glides, meditates, and simmers from "Alarmed" to "Still Sleeping." The soundtrack to his coffee in the morning, a trip to the corner store for fresh groceries, producing in the afternoon, cruising his bike through the city for inspiration, late afternoon song writing, stepping out into the evening with friends, hookah on the rooftop in Brooklyn, and settling into the dream world again. This is the Odd Tape, life as you've never heard it before.

Oddisee - The Odd Tape (CD)

Release Date: 5/13/16

Oddisee is an everyman with extraordinary talent. Both a rapper chronicling the perils and joys of ordinary existence, and a virtuosic producer attuned to the vibrations of how life actually sounds. But don't mistake the Odd Tape for the noise of birds chirping, idle chatter, or car alarms; it's that internal soul-jazz reverberating at the back of your brain.
For the last decade, the Mello Music Group artist has alternated between instrumental albums, full-length rap records, and his role as one-third of Diamond District. The Odd Tape is technically the former-there are no vocals-but if you call this an instrumental album, you might as well say the same about Bitches Brew.
After a decade making music, the Prince Georges, Md.-raised and Brooklyn-based has transcended influences, comparisons and genre. The Odd Tape showcases the range of a composer bending hip-hop, soul, and jazz into singular form, tapping into that same emotional Fort Knox that animates all wordless choruses.
The Odd Tape revolves around the rhythms of the artist's daily life. It starts in the morning with "Alarmed," that sounds like if Shuggie Otis did a psychedelic eye-opening cover of Nas' "Shootouts." It rolls through "Right Side of the Bed," with its glitter-gold sax lines, loose drums, and sunshine-slanting-through-the-blinds keyboards. Oddisee went from sampling to creating the eternal sounds of his original inspirations. You can hear older gods like Roy Ayers, Bob James, and Fela, but mostly you hear Oddisee continue to come into his own.
As Pitchfork described his previous album, 2015's The Good Fight: "the music feels distinctly international and unhindered, far removed from the straight-ahead boom-bap he used to make. He's always created on his own terms, but [this] feels like a hearty "fuck you" to prevailing groupthink and the industry's creative limitations."
But this record marks another ascension. It glides, meditates, and simmers from "Alarmed" to "Still Sleeping." The soundtrack to his coffee in the morning, a trip to the corner store for fresh groceries, producing in the afternoon, cruising his bike through the city for inspiration, late afternoon song writing, stepping out into the evening with friends, hookah on the rooftop in Brooklyn, and settling into the dream world again. This is the Odd Tape, life as you've never heard it before.

Oddisee - The Odd Tape (LP - Black Vinyl)

Oddisee is an everyman with extraordinary talent. Both a rapper chronicling the perils and joys of ordinary existence, and a virtuosic producer attuned to the vibrations of how life actually sounds. But don't mistake the Odd Tape for the noise of birds chirping, idle chatter, or car alarms; it's that internal soul-jazz reverberating at the back of your brain.
For the last decade, the Mello Music Group artist has alternated between instrumental albums, full-length rap records, and his role as one-third of Diamond District. The Odd Tape is technically the former-there are no vocals-but if you call this an instrumental album, you might as well say the same about Bitches Brew.
After a decade making music, the Prince Georges, Md.-raised and Brooklyn-based has transcended influences, comparisons and genre. The Odd Tape showcases the range of a composer bending hip-hop, soul, and jazz into singular form, tapping into that same emotional Fort Knox that animates all wordless choruses.
The Odd Tape revolves around the rhythms of the artist's daily life. It starts in the morning with "Alarmed," that sounds like if Shuggie Otis did a psychedelic eye-opening cover of Nas' "Shootouts." It rolls through "Right Side of the Bed," with its glitter-gold sax lines, loose drums, and sunshine-slanting-through-the-blinds keyboards. Oddisee went from sampling to creating the eternal sounds of his original inspirations. You can hear older gods like Roy Ayers, Bob James, and Fela, but mostly you hear Oddisee continue to come into his own.
As Pitchfork described his previous album, 2015's The Good Fight: "the music feels distinctly international and unhindered, far removed from the straight-ahead boom-bap he used to make. He's always created on his own terms, but [this] feels like a hearty "fuck you" to prevailing groupthink and the industry's creative limitations."
But this record marks another ascension. It glides, meditates, and simmers from "Alarmed" to "Still Sleeping." The soundtrack to his coffee in the morning, a trip to the corner store for fresh groceries, producing in the afternoon, cruising his bike through the city for inspiration, late afternoon song writing, stepping out into the evening with friends, hookah on the rooftop in Brooklyn, and settling into the dream world again. This is the Odd Tape, life as you've never heard it before.

Pete Rock - Petestrumentals 2 (Cassette)

Limited to 100 copies, exclusive to Fat Beats and Mello Music Group's webstores.Pete Rock was raised in Mount Vernon, but his face belongs on Mount Rushmore. The Chocolate Boy Wonder perfected an art form, inspired millions, and soundtracked a generation. By contrast, Teddy Roosevelt seems like a chump.
This is the man who Dilla told, “I wanted to be like you.” Kanye once called himself the “new Pete Rock.” But the original Pete Rock remains permanently vital. The evidence bangs in his latest opus, Petestrumentals 2, the sequel to the 2001 classic that helped define the hip-hop instrumental record. It marks the legend’s first album on Mello Music Group, a fitting union between the author of the boom-bap blueprint and the label that’s expanded upon his legacy.
Describing Pete Rock’s productions do them little justice. They resonate in your gut, heart, and brain. The title of one of these beats says it all: “Makes Me Feel Like.” You fill in the blanks based on your personal experience and current mood.
Petestrumentals 2 conjures memories of BBQ cookouts and 70s Blaxploitation scores, rattling summer jeep cruises and blunted Jamaican vacations. There’s a gorgeous requiem to Dilla (“Dilla Bounce (R.I.P),” where the originator pays tribute to the prodigy. You see the full range of Rock’s gifts on display: the meticulously chopped horns, unquantized drums, and air raid sirens. It contains the emotion of a thousand eulogies.No record can’t be resurrected. There’s no sub-genre or era that can’t be converted into Rock’s singular brand of soul. His music is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a time-traveling DeLorean, effortlessly shifting between past, present, and future.
For the last 20 years, hip-hop heads have argued over the best Pete Rock original productions and remixes. Is it “They Reminisce Over You” or the “Shut ‘Em Down Remix?” Do you prefer Soul Survivor or the first Petestrumentals, his work with INI or the UN? His catalogue can’t be compressed into a bio; you need a book.
This is the latest chapter—an even 20 slaps and rhythmic levitations. It’s Pete Rock at his best, accelerating and kicking cosmic slop, extending wishes, hope, love, gritty drums and eternal wonder.

Apollo Brown - Thirty Eight (LP - Yellow & Black Splatter + Bonus 7")

Apollo Brown’s Thirty Eight is a contemporary throwback, inhabiting the realm of reverent reinvention and innovation. It deftly bridges the gap between ‘70s Blaxploitation soundtracks (e.g. Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly or Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man) and the hip-hop records that sampled from them. The tracks on Thirty Eight are presented in gritty, heavily saturated Technicolor, the scratches and cigarette burns as purposeful as they are happily accidental. These are suites sounding from long barrels held by lone men lurking in grimy project hallways. Tinged with revenge and regret, shrouded in thick tendrils of hollow-point smoke, the songs have all the makings of an epic gangster tragedy. They’re also great when paired with anything Raymond Chandler. Crackle and sample hiss run like electric current throughout, charging the record with a retro feel and resonant warmth. Yet these qualities are only secondary to Brown’s impeccable ear for instrumentation. Thirty Eight is full of funk, soul, jazz, blues, hip-hop, and everything in between. The bluesy guitar twang of slow-burner “Black Suits” and the lush, orchestral strings of “The Warning” are just two examples of the depth and diversity Brown brings to the table. All singing on the album comes in the form of brief samples, some high-pitched and sped up, others left untouched. Taken together, they amount to glimpses of an emotionally affecting narrative, enabling the listener to fill in the plot and words between the booms and baps. Brown enlists New York mercenary Roc Marciano for the soundtrack’s two features. With the sharpest of eyes and the frostbitten wit of a Polo clad hustler slanging in the dead of winter, Marciano delivers his best verses in recent memory, his vivid narratives perfectly suited for Brown’s soulful production. Each CD comes packaged with 5" inch vinyl featuring the aforementioned Roc Marciano tracks. Quite possibly the first time a CD and 5" inch record have ever been sold together, cop yours before they’re gone. For fans who desire the full analog experience, we’ve pressed up 180-gram vinyl. Each vinyl copy also includes a 45 featuring two bonus instrumentals. Whether you buy a physical copy or download Thirty Eight digitally, don't call it a beat tape. With this project Brown has created an expansive cinematic composition for the theatre of your mind. Listen, envision, and enjoy the show.